[FARC] FARC Fox Hunt

[Mark Whitmore]

The first annual FARC Fox Hunt was held yesterday in Baker Park in 
Frederick.
I have not had a chance to talk to the other participants but I 
personally had a great
time even though I didn't find the foxes.  I want to thank our 
president, Brian Rozelle
(AB3RW), for organizing this event and making it happen.

First prize went to Herb Palm (K3HCP) who found both foxes while the 
rest of us were
wandering around in the park.  Herb used his homemade tape 
measure-and-PVC pipe
four element yagi with great success.

Lou Popowsky (KB3RNT) brought two homemade directional antennas. He used one
and let me use the other.  I was able to get the general direction to 
the hidden foxes but
also got a lot of misleading nulls that slowed me down and added an 
element of confusion.
I now think these were caused by reflections from chain link fences and 
other structures in
and around the park.

Mel Schall (KB3ZVB) had a direction finding receiver that is used by the 
CAP to track beacons
from downed aircraft.  Not sure how well this worked.  I noticed that 
Mel had changed to using
his hand held with a rubber ducky antenna and a couple of 7DB pads. Mel 
also loaned two
pads to me but even with 14DB of attenuation the signal from the fox was 
too strong to get a
definite line to the fox.

Jeff Fishman (KB3FIO) was also using the technique that he had mentioned 
at the last meeting.
That is, using the hand-held antenna and using your body to block the 
signal.  Don't know how
close Jeff got to the fox.

It was good to see two younger participants that I did not get a chance 
to meet.

All in all, it was fun and I hope we can do it again.   With what I 
learned from this experience,
I will be better prepared for the next one.

73,
Mark (AB3KS)